Hi dmb,
> Steve said to dmb: > Okay, but what exactly _is_ your criticism. What the heck to you mean by > relativism? ..How about specifying what you mean by relativism and how Rorty > fits the bill while James does not? > > > > dmb says: > You're asking the question in response to my answer to the question. Wouldn't > it make a lot more sense to ask about the answer rather than ask the same > question again? Is there something unclear about the answer I already gave or > do you love it so much that you want another serving? Anyway, to repeat the > answer already given, the criticism is "about the consequences of thinking > that conversation is the only constraint on truth. That's what his critics > balk at and I think every serious person should think about why they're > balking, especially those who follow Rorty or who call themselves a > pragmatist of any kind". Steve: You've told me that you and others balk at a particular statement, but that doesn't answer my question. You haven't defined what relativism is. If you define relativism to mean saying the words "there are no non-conversational constraints on inquiry" then no doubt Rorty is a relativist by your lights. But I suspect you must have something more general in mind for what a relativist is. Please make that definition explicit so we can see how Rorty fits the bill of a dangerous relativist while James doesn't. > Steve replied: > But Rorty never said that conversation is what constrains truth. ...What > Rorty actually said in Pragmatism, Relativism, and Irrationalism is, "... > pragmatism: it is the doctrine that there are no constraints ON INQUIRY save > conversational ones -- no wholesale constraints derived from the nature of > the objects, or of the mind, or of language, but only those retail > constraints provided by the remarks of our fellow-inquirers." ..."The > pragmatist tells us that it is useless to hope that objects will constrain us > to believe the TRUTH about them, if only they are approached with an > unclouded mental eye, or a rigorous method, or a perspicuous language. > ..The only sense in which we are constrained to TRUTH is that, as Peirce > suggested, we can make no sense of the notion that the view which can survive > all objections might be false. But objections -- conversational constraints > -- cannot be anticipated. There is no method for knowing when one has reached > the TRUTH, or when one is c > loser to it than before." > > > dmb says: > I'm glad you're bringing textual evidence but this is not news to me and it > doesn't alter my point or my criticism. This is exactly what I'm complaining > about and this is what Rorty's critics are balking at. This Rorty quote > displays the all-or-nothingism I've been criticizing too. Steve: Is it _Rorty_ or you who is exhibiting the all or nothingism? It seems to me that it is Rorty who is saying what we can't have (a metaphysical foundation) and it is you who is insisting that we are therefore left with nothing. dmb: There are no wholesale constraints derived from the nature of objects or anything like that, therefore, he thinks, we ought not be doing epistemology, empiricism or worrying about any other truth theories. Steve: And to you and your all-or-nothing-ism that means we have nothing. To him that just means we'll keep on muddling through as we always have. dmb: Conversation is the only constraint because we just can't have "the voice of God", "the indubitable", "the apriori structure of any possible inquiry", "permanent non-human constraints" or any other such "metaphysical comfort". That is what I mean by "all-or-nothingism". Steve: The conversational sort is the only sort of constraint ON INQUIRY. And what is inquiry? As Pierce described it in Fixation, "The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief. I shall term this struggle inquiry...The irritation of doubt is the only immediate motive for the struggle to attain belief. It is certainly best for us that our beliefs should be such as may truly guide our actions so as to satisfy our desires; and this reflection will make us reject every belief which does not seem to have been so formed as to insure this result. But it will only do so by creating a doubt in the place of that belief. With the doubt, therefore, the struggle begins, and with the cessation of doubt it ends. Hence, the sole object of inquiry is the settlement of opinion. We may fancy that this is not enough for us, and that we seek, not merely an opinion, but a true opinion. But put this fancy to the test, and it proves groundless; for as soon as a firm belief is reached we are entirely satisfied, whether the belief be true or false. And it is clear that nothing out of the sphere of our knowledge can be our object, for nothing which does not affect the mind can be the motive for mental effort. The most that can be maintained is, that we seek for a belief that we shall think to be true. But we think each one of our beliefs to be true, and, indeed, it is mere tautology to say so. That the settlement of opinion is the sole end of inquiry is a very important proposition." Steve: So inquiry is concerned with assuaging doubts and doubts are things that are held and raised by human beings who need to justify beliefs to themselves and others in their communities. It is the objections to our beliefs that we and others come up with which must be dealt with in order to settle on new and better beliefs. What is absent from this picture that concerns the sort of people who like to accuse others of relativism is "the world" as a term that are beliefs are to be true _of_. But that is presumably not your concern. Instead, what you find missing is "experience." Beliefs are not thought of as true _of_ experience where a proper correspondence would be in question, but tested in the course of our daily activities nevertheless. But still, unless you can make something of how testing functions, you haven't specified anything of the "I have something that you don't have" nature that Rorty is missing. What Rorty allows for in this testing is whatever comes up in the course of conversations between people justifying their beliefs to one another without privileging in advance any particular sorts of arguments that people can make. (That includes saying things like, "how do I know the cat is on the mat? Well look for yourself. The cat is right over there!") The good arguments are the ones that convince. We don't have a way of specifying in advance a method for constructing justifications that ought to win the day. We can say general things like, a belief that leads to successful action is worth believing, but terms like "success" will resist static or general definition. What counts as success has to be worked out in the course of conversation. dmb: I hear a bleak nihilism and a dreary resignation where Rorty says, "In the end, the pragmatists tell us, what matters is our loyalty to other human beings clinging together against the dark, not our hope of getting things right " That's Rorty's philosophical ethno-centrism for you; clinging together against the dark. Steve: Clinging together in the dark can be a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. Best, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
